‘‘Get creative.’’
As Jox headed up to the apartment above the shop, he knew he was asking for trouble, giving the kid free rein. But Red-Boar was a mind-bender. He could wipe Strike’s disappearing act from the customers’ brains . . . and he could go deeper if Rabbit went too far.
That was assuming, of course, that the barrier was all the way active. Jox had to assume that, because if it wasn’t and Red-Boar couldn’t go into the barrier and drag Strike’s ass out, then they were seriously screwed. The possibility made the winikin’s breath whistle in his lungs as he pounded up the stairs and skidded through the main door of the apartment. Going on instinct, he headed for the back, to a door that was almost always kept locked.
The padlock hung open.
Taking a deep breath, Jox pushed open the door and stepped through into Red-Boar’s ritual chamber.
They’d had the windows drywalled over, the recessed lights removed, and the walls covered with a fake stone facade. Lit braziers hung at the four world corners, and a small chac-mool altar stood against the far wall. Shaped like a man sitting in a sort of zigzag shape, with his feet, ass, and elbows on the ground, and his knees and upper body raised, balancing a flat slab on his kneecaps and collarbones, with his head turned ninety degrees, the chac-mool, represented the sacred rain god. It served as altar and throne, and as a place for sacrifice.
Red-Boar sat cross-legged in front of the chac-mool, with his eyes closed and his hands lying on his knees, palms up. His right palm was slashed and bloodstained, though already partway healed. Another sign that the magic was working.
‘‘I need you,’’ Jox said quietly, hating to disturb him but having no choice.
Red-Boar’s dusky face, with its slashing, hooked nose and wide, high cheekbones, didn’t change. He didn’t even twitch.
He was wearing his ceremonial robes, which were long and black, with stingray spines forming intricate glyph patterns at the cuffs and collar. The hood was thrown back, revealing his dark, close-clipped hair and the gray streaks at the temples that made him look older than his forty-five years, though his body was big and strong beneath the robes.
His right sleeve was pushed up to reveal the chitam glyph that tagged him as a member of the boar bloodline, along with the mind-bender’s talent glyph and the mark of an elite warrior-priest. Between those marks, though, was a bare patch where he’d once worn the jun tan ‘‘beloved’’ glyph for his wife, along with two smaller chitams representing his twin sons, all three of whom had died during the Solstice Massacre.
‘‘Red-Boar.’’ Jox reached out and gripped the other man’s shoulder. ‘‘We have—’’
At the touch, the Nightkeeper exploded off the floor and grabbed Jox by the throat. Pain seared at the point of contact, and a terrible scream erupted in Jox’s head as the Nightkeeper slammed him against the wall and held him there.
Red-Boar’s eyes seared into him, gleaming with power, with hatred.
Jox flailed, trying to shout at Red-Boar, to tell him to snap out of it, but all he could manage was a panicked gurgle. His vision went gray at the edges, telescoping down to the blackness of the Nightkeeper’s eyes.
Then the other man blinked. And let go.
Jox landed in a heap, gasping for breath.
Red-Boar crouched down beside him, not to aid or comfort, but to hiss, ‘‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, winikin?’’ In his rasping voice, the title was a slur. ‘‘You know better than to interrupt magic.’’
‘‘And you should’ve known better than to jack in the moment you felt the barrier come back online,’’ Jox got out between gasps. ‘‘You should’ve damn well checked on Strike first.’’
‘‘You forget your place, winikin. I—’’
‘‘He’s gone,’’ Jox interrupted, and had the satisfaction of seeing the other man go pale.
‘‘He jacked in without an escort?’’
‘‘He vanished in front of five witnesses.’’ Jox mimicked the woman downstairs: ‘‘Poof.’’
Red-Boar’s breath hissed out as he made the connection. ‘‘Shit. Teleport.’’
Strike’s father hadn’t had an innate talent beyond the warrior’s mark—only about one in three Nightkeepers did—but his father had been a teleport, as had a couple of other jaguars in the generation prior. So, yeah, that made sense. But it wasn’t good news by any stretch. Teleporting was a tricky talent—the user had to link to a person or place first, then initiate the ’port. Jumping blind was . . . well, it wasn’t good.
‘‘Can you track him?’’ Jox demanded, almost afraid of the answer.
‘‘I can damn well try,’’ Red-Boar said, yanking open the door and heading for the stairs.
But his voice made it sound like ‘‘probably not.’’
CHAPTER TWO
Leah woke in pitch darkness, bound and gagged and draped over a man’s shoulder. There was no moment of confusion, no gap between unconsciousness and memory. She came around sick with rage over Nick’s death, and with fear at knowing she’d walked into Zipacna’s trap and given him exactly what he’d wanted.
We’ll see about that, she thought, fanning the anger because she knew she couldn’t afford the fear. She had to be strong—for herself. For Matty and Nick. For her parents, who shouldn’t have had to bury one of their children, never mind both.
Forcing herself to focus, she examined the situation, using her other senses when the darkness left her blind. Her captor’s footsteps crunched on gravel, maybe coarse sand, and there was a faint rasp, as though he was trailing his hand against the irregular wall she sensed right beside them. Other footsteps grated ahead and behind, suggesting a single-file line of five, maybe six people. Vibrations echoed from a wall and ceiling very close by, and that, along with the darkness, said they were in a tunnel of some sort. But water dripped into water on the other side—an underground river with a path beside it, maybe?
The thought brought a jolt of fear, of memory, but she shoved it aside. No freaking way, she told herself. Impossible.
She wasn’t in Miami anymore—she was sure of that much, though she couldn’t have said why. She was also pretty sure it was nighttime, meaning that she’d been out of it all day. Long enough to travel.
Focus, she told herself. Be a cop. Wherever they were, it smelled old. Worse, the vibe reminded her of the grimmest crime scenes she’d ever worked, ones where the body counts had reached into the dozens and they’d had to use DNA to figure out which parts belonged in what pile. People had died down here—lots of them, though not recently.
The shuffling line—creepy in its lack of chatter— turned a corner and the air changed, becoming drier as they moved away from the underground river. Then the faintest hint of a new smell prickled Leah’s sinuses, some sort of incense, and they turned another corner and firelight warmed the tunnel walls, barely detectable at first but growing stronger as they moved on.
In the yellow-orange glow, she saw strangely fluid symbols and pictures carved into the walls—men and women with flattened foreheads and exaggerated noses, fierce animals with long fangs and claws.
Her gut fisted and cold sweat prickled her skin. She wanted to tell herself it was a bunch of props, an elaborate set Zipacna had designed to put the fear of his gods into his disciples. Hell, rumor had it he’d built himself a fake temple in the swampside compound he and his fellow freaks called home. But the air was wrong, the sense of being far underground too strong.